Help! Swollen Colons and Dying Chicks! *WARNING* Graphic Pictures Included

[Ibicella]

Help! My chicks are dying! I have lost 4 of them so far.

I received 13 Red Ranger chicks, 1 Crevecoeur chick, and 1 Golden-laced Polish chick from Murray McMurray on Monday.

Crevecoeur was DOA. I figured since it was quite a bit smaller than the RR's (about 1/3rd of the size), it just didn't survive the stress of transit and being packed with the larger chicks. It happens. The polish seemed sluggish and stressed, but ate and drank and I figured the night would tell.

Tuesday the Polish passed. Figured the same thing.

Wednesday, I lost one of the RR's.

Today I lost another RR.

I necropsied this one. Here's the facts:

Chick was totally fine yesterday. Dead today.

Normal looking stools.

Prolapsed rectum.

Necropsy shows most everything is fine. Crop was full of food and healthy. Stomach and gizzard are healthy.

Only thing I can see that was wrong was the bottom 1/3rd of the colon was double the size. The stools inside are a normal looking brown if diarrhetic.

Help!

Prolapsed rectum with a little blood and stool




Intestines removed. You can see how it starts out normal on the right and the part the knife is pointing to is where the problem starts.



I have more pictures of the necropsy process if anyone would like to see them.

 

[MrsBrooke]

Do you think it could be something like omphalitis?

So very sorry for your losses.

MrsB

 

[Ibicella]

Do you think it could be something like omphalitis?

So very sorry for your losses.

MrsB

I'm afraid I am at a loss.

I'm hoping someone with more experience can give me some suggestions before I lose all my babies.

 

[MrsBrooke]

Did they eat pine shavings, maybe?? No worms or anything? :/

MrsB

 

[Ibicella]

Did they eat pine shavings, maybe?? No worms or anything?

MrsB

No worms or obvious parasites seen, no evidence of shavings or anything other than chick feed in the digestive system.

I necropsied the second chick that died several days ago. It was in much better shape internally than the one pictured above, but again the lower intestine looked a bit inflamed.

 

[Ibicella]

Bump

 

[the poppster]

Impacted probably caused by..stress and most likely dehydrated...all it takes is tiny bit of pastey butt...almost unnoticeable smudge to block things up...if they were in the same broader with the others they may not have gotten to the water quickly enough...or enough times...and once they get plugged up, if it's not notice and fixed...it doesn't take very long before the chicks get sick and die...if I get chicks of different sizes I will put them in the same broader, but partition it off...with a hardware cloth wall...keeing the little ones separate from the big ones for the first week or so...with their own water and food...they get to know each other...but the big ones can't bully the little ones. Works for me, no losses since I've started separating them this way